Taking Care of Your Parents: My Own Story

Your parents took care of you — wiped your nose, helped you with your homework, looked for a good college or apartment with you, and maybe even walked you down the aisle. So now that they are older, perhaps more feeble and well past their income earning years, they need your help. No, they don’t need help with their homework, but they might need help in finding a good apartment — that is, long term care facility. And the needs of one set of parents are different from the needs of the next set of parents, just like when […]

We may have different ways of showing it, but most of us want our parents to be happy and well cared for in their golden years. Some of us want to rush in and set things up for Mom or Dad so that we know that they are well provided for. Others believe “if Mom needs my help, she’ll ask me.” So we’re all over the map.

But what about Mom? Everything we’re thinking, everything we’re trying to work out is from our point of view. What does it look like from her point of view? […]

If you have followed my story at all, you know that my brothers and I are trying our very best to care for our aging mother. And, like most of you who have followed this blog, you were not prepared to be a caregiver for your parents either. We seem to be at a difficult spot. . .what to do when Mom isn’t quite ready to give up the house and home she loves but can’t quite take care of herself the way she once did.

Mom does appreciate our efforts, to be sure. She is 87 years old, and will […]

It can be downright embarrassing. You are helping your parents in their golden years. Sometimes the help is deciding where the investments should be kept. For most of us, it is more down-to-earth decisions, like where will Mom & Dad stay if one of them needs physical or mental assistance.

Most recently, I was sitting with my mother while a nurse came in to visit with her. After remarking on how well she keeps her house (it is immaculate. . .I think dust stopped trying to collect at her house. It just moved on.), she began with the medical questions…you […]

Many of us are thrown into making long-term care or health care decisions by an emergency. Your Mom falls and breaks her hip, or you get a call that Dad is wandering, sometimes aimlessly, and the neighbors are afraid that he’ll wander off. These events are heartbreaking and, often, budget-busting. When your parents’ doctor tells you “we need to know where you want your mother to be transferred to for her long-term rehabilitation” and gives you four hours to decide, you have a problem. And this scenario plays out everyday.

Instead of being thrown into the fire, you can do what […]

When we have to care for our parents a change happens. A change which involves switching roles with our parents, and for many of us it is uncomfortable. Nothing in our education prepared us for this. We don’t know how to ease into this change.

With me, it’s caring for my mom. I always took direction from my mom. I looked up to her and asked her for advice. She had the place of authority in our relationship. So now that I am beginning to care for her, do our positions really change? Does this mean that I no longer look […]